Trailer Hitch Installation - 2016 Chevrolet Trax - Hidden Hitch

How to Install a Trailer Hitch on a 2016 Chevrolet Trax

Today on our 2016 Chevrolet Trax we're going to take a look at, then show you how to install the Hidden Hitch custom fit class two trailer hitch receiver, part number 90244. Here's what our hitch is going to look like installed. As you can see, we're going to have that round crosstube that's going to come across almost all the way. It kind of ends a little bit short here to accommodate for our exhaust. You can see our 1-1/4" by 1-1/4" receiver tube opening here. It's got the strap-style reinforcement collar that's been welded around the end there.

Also, the plate here you can see for our safety chain connection points. Those are nice and large and open so whatever style of either a stabilizing strap or safety chains that you're going to connect there, you shouldn't really have a problem with it. You can see our 1/2" diameter pinhole here. That's going to be for securing all of our items. Looks like a pin and a clip would work just fine. Locking hitch pins should work and some of the anti-rattle devices are going to work out with it as well.

You just want to use something that's pretty small in diameter. As you can see, we don't have a ton of room between our safety chain connection point here and our pinhole. A smaller diameter accessory should work out great. You'll want to be sure those are rated class two. Now as far as towing goes, we're going to have a 300 pound tongue weight rating; that's the maximum downward force we'll be able to put here at the receiver tube opening. It's going to offer a 3,500 gross trailer weight rating.

That's going to be the total weight of our trailer and anything that we load up on it. Of course you will want to look into the owner's manual of the Trax, see what its tow ratings are. We'll go off of whichever of those numbers are the lowest. Now a few measurements that are going to be helpful in selecting your ball mounts, bike racks, or hitch cargo carriers will be from the ground to the inside top edge of our receiver tube opening it's about 12". Then from the center of our hitch pinhole to the outermost edge of our bumper we've got about 5". Now to begin our installation we're going to use a support strap to go underneath our exhaust. Cinch that down.

We're going to three exhaust hangers. We've got one here on the outside of the muffler, one in the exact same spot on the opposite side, and then if we follow the exhaust forward, there's going to be one located right here. Now this one is optional; however, it will help us lower the exhaust down a little bit more. If you pull on the backside usually it will just pop right off there for you. Now we'll just let a little slack into our slap there. You'll see our exhaust will come down there, give us some room to work. Now from our passenger side we're going to have two mounting locations here on the bottom of the frame. We're going to have the hole most close to the rear of the bumper and then just in front of that exhaust hanger we'll have another one. It's going to be right here. What we're going to do is take our pull wire, place it up in, and just let that come back. We want to try to get it out the access hole, which is right here. We'll feed on a spacer block. We'll also thread on one of our carriage bolts. Now we need to feed these up into the frame rail separately . the carriage block. We pull that brake line down just a touch to give us a little bit of room. That's going to be our rear mounting location. Now let's do the same thing for here. Once that's done, just pop that brake line back into position. Then we'll go over to our other side. Now here our attachment point's going to be the same hole that we had on the passenger side that was just behind our brake line, and also right up here on the side we're going to be using the weld nut located right there. It would be a good idea to get that weld nut cleaned out before your hitch is in place in case there's any dirt or debris in there. Use just a little bit of lubricant and then we've got a nylon tube brush here; this is part number 814092. We'll get our bolt fish-wired into position. Just like the other side, good idea to get a little bit of slack there. Spacer block will go on, and then our bolt. Now we'll feed them up in separately. We can pull down through. Now I'm going to pull one of my bolt leaders off there in the passenger side. With the help of an extra set of hands, we'll get our hitch raised up into position. That one fish wire we've left in place, put it down through its appropriate hole and we'll just use that as a guide. Then we're going to place on a conical tooth washer. The teeth of that needs to face up towards the hitch. Then we can thread on one of our hex nuts. We just let our hitch rest there while we get the rest of our hardware started. Now on the driver side we want to put one of our spacer blocks up on our forward carriage bolt. Then we'll do the same with our conical tooth washer and our hex nut. Now for the rear attachment point here we want to take our wedge spacer. That's going to slide up the inside portion of our hitch. Then we're going to take our standard hex bolt with conical tooth washer. That's going to go through that spacer. We just need to get it threaded into our weld nut just like that. Then we'll start our last conical tooth washer and hex nut over here on the driver side. Now we'll take just a quick look. It's going to help us make sure we've got our hitch centered. Then we're ready to start snugging down our hardware. Now we can look into our instructions. There we'll find our torque specifications. We're going to get everything torqued down appropriately. Now we'll get a little bit more lube on our exhaust hangers here and slide them back into position. now we'll just pull down our safety strap and our hitch is going to be ready for use. With our exhaust reinstalled, that completes our installation of the Hidden Hitch custom fit class two trailer hitch receiver, part number 90244, on our 2016 Chevrolet Trax.